Crescent Chapter 3
by originella
Summary: Sophie has just woken up to discover that Carlisle has saved her...and transformed her into a vampire. Frightened, especially when she realizes that Maddie has not woken up yet, Carlisle tells her that she must calm herself, and is equally surprised when she, a newborn, does so...


I am at a campsite with my parents and my younger brother. When I say "parents" I mean my mother and stepfather. We are sitting around a campfire, roasting marshmallows. The orange fire makes my face hot, flushing my cheeks, but I don't care. All I want is that burning marshmallow in my mouth and in my stomach.

I remove it from the fire, but it falls onto my face, burning my nose and making me scream.

"Stop, stop… Make it stop…please make it stop…"

"Waking up, are we?"

My eyes fly open. I look up to see a man over six feet tall with blonde hair and gold eyes and pale skin staring back at me. He is dressed sensibly, yet there is an air of professionalism about him all the same. Instinctively, I know at once who this man, this vampire, is. "Carlisle?" I whisper, hardly believing my eyes.

He blinks. "Yes."

I sit up, noticing then that I am in a makeshift hospital room on what appears to be some sort of pallet. "You're Dr. Carlisle Cullen, wife of Esme, adopted father of Edward, Emmett, Jasper, Rosalie, and Alice, and father-in-law to Bella Swan and grandfather to Renesmee," I say softly, noticing how shocked he looks.

"How did you know…?"

I shrug. "I guess everyone has to know something."

He smiles. "You're correct."

I look around to my left, detecting a certain amount of sterilization floating around me. "You saved my life?" I asked.

He nodded. "I suppose you can call it that. Can you tell me your name? Do you remember your name?"

I blink, then find that I am nodding at him. "Yes. I'm Sophie Pickford," I reply.

Carlisle reaches out and takes my hand. "It's nice to meet you, Sophie," he says cordially.

I gasp and withdraw my hand. It is smooth and clean-feeling, but not cold as it ought to have been. I lower my eyes to my normally pale skin, to find that it is almost the same clear white color of milk. My skin is now a wonderful alabaster, and I have the sudden urge to look at myself in a mirror. I get to my feet and suddenly I am propelled at the bathroom with lightning speed, hardly believing my movements.

I stare at myself in the mirror, shaking to the core. My hair, once all bunched in curliness, is now more wavy and flowing freely down my back; it also has a silky sheen to it. My nose is straighter and not as turned up as before—I recalled then the vampire stepping on it, so Carlisle must have fixed it for me; how generous of him, I thought. I was wirier in build now than before, and my curves had shrunk in drastically. Then, I took a deep breath and stared at myself, eye to eye, in the mirror. I staggered backward, a hand at my throat. Red, ruby-colored eyes stared back at me. I found myself gasping, but found I did not need to breathe.

"Carlisle…"

He was there in an instant. "Sophie, it's all right. Be calm."

I shake my head. "I'm a vampire!" I cry, shaking my head in disbelief. "I can't believe this!"

"I could bring Jasper in here," he said. "He—"

"I know, he helps with peoples' emotions," I interrupt him, shaking my head from side to side.

"Yes," Carlisle replies. "Can you be calm? Be calm, Sophie."

Instantly, my body relaxed and I felt neutral.

Carlisle raised his eyebrows. "What just happened?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. Don't you think that it could have been you?" I ask him. "Could you have controlling powers?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't think so."

"Maybe I have self-control or something like that." I look him up and down, when suddenly I can see through his jeans to his socks. I shake my head, trying to get the image of his perfectly toned legs out of my mind.

"What is it?" he asks.

"White athletic socks really aren't your thing," I tell him.

He lowers his eyes, noticing that his socks are obliterated from view by the legs of his jeans. "You can see them?"

I nod. "Yes."

"You can see through solid objects?"

I look around. I look at a wall and concentrate hard enough before I can see Alice waiting outside the door, her dark hair in a short, stylish pixie cut. She is also wearing a mauve blouse with white skinny jeans and black flats; she also has a flower pendant pinned to her blouse.

"Come in, Alice," I say.

Alice comes into the room in a flighty sort of way. "Sophie!" she gushes, throwing her arms around me. "It's so nice to finally meet you. You've been out for two days!"

"Alice," Carlisle says in warning.

"No, its fine," I say quickly. "Really, it's cool. I should have asked anyway, really, Carlisle. I mean, Maddie and I were…" Suddenly I can feel my eyes widening. "Maddie…" I whisper, looking past Carlisle and Alice and into the operating room behind them. _So that's why I sensed that it was a sterile environment in there_, I thought. It's his home clinic, of sorts. I turn back to Alice and Carlisle, amber eyes meeting mine. "Where's Maddie?" I ask them directly, prompting them to reply.

"There," Alice says, taking me by the hand and pulling me into the operating room again. "She's with us, don't worry. Well, I should see that she will be with us shortly."

"But…the vampire…" I shake my head. "He got to Maddie first, I remember that. How did you manage to change me and have me wake up before her?" I ask, remembering coming in second to Maddie many times.

"It was Rosalie who found you," Alice explained softly. "She has an acute sense of smell, since almost the same thing happened to her, you see, except that—"

"Except that her fiancé, Royce King, and his buddies did what they did and left her for dead," I said quietly.

Alice turns sharply to me. "How did you know?"

I blink, not knowing myself. "I don't know," I reply.

"She's brilliant, Alice, just brilliant," Carlisle says from behind me. "Could you show her, Sophie?" he asks.

I give him a smile. "All right," I tell him. I turn and look at Alice through narrowed eyes. She was wearing a matching lingerie set, which was leopard printed. "Animal print is so not your thing," I say with a smirk. "It's so trashy, and I'd go for something more elegant, more couture. I mean…you're the one who predicts the stock market. Couldn't you predict what's in-style or not?" I ask her.

Alice gasped. "You can see through solid objects?!" she demands. "Is that how you could see me outside the door?"

I nod at her. "Yes." I turn back towards Maddie. "Who found her?"

"Emmett," Alice replies. "We were out on a hunt, and Jasper felt your sadness and fear, while Rosalie and Carlisle smelled all the blood. Rosalie found you first and carried you back with Carlisle shouting orders. It was only then that Jasper figured out that you weren't just sad for yourself, and Emmett went back and found Maddie."

I nod. "Why didn't Edward just read my mind?"

Alice sighs. "It's very strange. You said that you obey orders?"

I nod. "Yes. Carlisle told me to be calm and I did."

Alice nods. She bites her lip and shuts her eyes, before shaking her head and pulling out her cell phone. She presses a button and then I can hear two rings on her phone.

"Hello?" says a voice on the other end, sounding like a massive, beautiful, carol of bells.

"Kate, it's Alice. Carlisle just created two more for the Olympic Coven," she says, shooting me a smile.

"Two more?" she asks. "Who are they?"

"They're from Seattle," Alice replies. "Only one is up right now. Her name is Sophie, I.D. says nineteen, but she could easily pass for fifteen. Kate…I think, like you and Bella, that Sophie is a shield."

I turn and look at Carlisle. "A shield?!" I cry, my eyes widening.

He gives me a smile and puts up his hand, nodding in Alice's direction. I take it to mean that we should listen to her, so I turn back to her.

"Why do you say that?" asks Kate over the phone.

"Well, because when we found them, Edward couldn't read her thoughts! I can pick up her future just fine, but Edward could only read her friend, Maddie's, thoughts."

I gasp then. Wow. I couldn't believe it.

"Have they gone out yet?"

"To hunt? Oh, no, I don't think so."

It is then that there is a sudden, uncontrollable burning sensation which erupts from my stomach, and up into my throat. I let out a growl, which turns into a moan, and I turn to Carlisle, my eyes pleading with him. "I'm so thirsty," I whisper.

Carlisle shoots Alice a look for unintentionally being insensitive and nods to me, his look firm. "Alice, get off the phone. I need you to keep an eye on Maddie. Get Esme and Emmett and Jasper to come with us, please. Edward and Bella, too. Maybe they can help."

"What about Rosalie?" I ask.

"Rosalie will stay and help me," Alice replies, giving an apologetic smile in my direction. She flits out of the room while I lean unnecessarily against the wall, the burning sensation constant.

"What am I going to do?" I ask him.

"What do you mean?"

I sigh. "I can't go back to Seattle now. I need protection…and won't the Volturi want me? Aro?" I whisper, my knees beginning to shake. "I mean…I have a gift, don't I? He likes collecting, doesn't he?"

Carlisle nods. "Yes," he says softly. "Like Alice, Edward, and Bella, you would be a prize for him... Don't worry about that."

A lovely woman, looking to be in her twenties, enters the room first. She is a brunette and has a kind, softly pretty face. When she smiles at Carlisle, I know then that this is Esme. "Hello, Sophie," she says to me, putting her arms around me in what would have been a stiff hug, had I not had a stiff body like hers.

"Esme," I whisper. "It's nice to meet you." She releases me and looks deeply into my face. Her eyes are shiny amber and her smile is kind. Her body is willowy, yet slightly voluptuous like mine, so we have the air of average, healthy humans, as opposed to Alice, who could easily pass for a supermodel. "My, my," she says. "You were pretty before, but now you're beautiful."

Had I been human, I would have blushed. But those days were over. "Thank you," I reply.

"How does it feel to be a Cullen?" a large vampire asks.

I look past Esme and determine that this enormously tall man is Emmett Cullen. "Emmett?" I ask.

"Hell yeah," he says, walking past Esme and scooping me up off the ground and turning about. "A new little sister! I love it!"

"Carlisle," Esme says in a soft voice from behind me, sensing my confusion at Emmett's comment, as any mother would. "Didn't you ask Sophie if she would like to be a part of this family?"

"I was just about to, but…"

"Carlisle," Esme scolded lightly.

"Emmett…speedos aren't for you," I mutter.

Emmett almost drops me he is so surprised. "Are they showing?!" he demands, his voice cracking.

"No," I reply.

"You can see through things," Jasper says from behind Emmett with a grin in my direction. He walks past his giant of a brother and gives me a gentle hug. "It's great to meet you, Sophie. Alice has been talking nonstop about you these past two days."

"That's good to hear," I reply.

"She's also a shield," Edward says quietly. "Two in the same family, how about that?" he asks, putting an arm around a pretty young woman with long brown hair.

I took this to be Bella. "Bella?" I ask.

She smiles and crosses the room to hug me. "Hey, Sophie," she says. "It's really nice to meet you. It's nice to see that I'm not the only one whose thoughts can remain undetectable."

"You can take it down," I say softly as she releases me. "You've revealed your thoughts to him in the past."

Bella blinks. "I have," she says quietly.

"Sophie?"

I turn and look at Carlisle and Esme. "Yes?"

"Would you like to be a Cullen?" Esme asks.

I smile. "Yes. Anything to be a vegetarian," I say with a laugh. I look past Emmett and Jasper, to see that Rosalie—who gives me a smile and, like Alice, looks clearly like a supermodel—and Alice have converged upon my dear friend Maddie. "But…what about…?"

Esme puts an arm around me. "You mean Maddie?"

I nod. "Well…we could always say that Rosalie and Jasper were once triplets or something, and that Maddie has been missing all this time," I say, feeling laughter erupting from me again.

"That's actually not a bad idea at all," says Rosalie, speaking for the first time. "Jasper?" she asks, turning to her "twin".

Jasper nods. "Yes. She's too fair to be a Cullen. While Sophie is fair, she isn't dark enough to look like you and I. So…" He says, turning to Carlisle and Esme, the adults.

"Sophie, what we are asking is a serious question. And the question we pose is this: Would you like to be a Cullen—a member of this family—and all that this name entails?" Carlisle asks.

"Protection?" I ask. "Shelter…love…"

"Oh, she'll need protection," Emmett says gruffly. "Once Aro gets wind of her, he'll want her for himself, there's no question."

"Emmett," Carlisle says softly.

I shift uncomfortably from foot to foot. "And Maddie would be a Hale, but still a member of this family?"

"Yes, of course," Esme replies.

"Sophie Cullen," I whisper. "Sophie Cullen…" I look up at all the vampires standing around me. "Are all of you okay with this?" I ask. "I mean…don't you want to vote or something?"

Bella chuckles at me, recalling the situation I'm talking about. "Guys, come on," she says, giving them all smiles. "Let's cut Sophie a break. She's had a hard last forty-eight hours. She and Maddie have only been humans a little longer than me, and… Yes," she says.

Edward, his arm still around her, gives me a nod. "Yes," he says. "I know that Aro and the rest of them would come after her, but I will stand by if anything happens. Yes."

"Hell yes," Emmett says, picking me up and swinging me around again. "I love newborns! This'll be fun…"

"In my experience with newborns, they can prove to be unpredictable. I believe that Sophie, like Bella, will be easier to handle. She will prove a fine addition to our family. Yes," Jasper says.

"She showed a sense of humility by feeling sadness for not only herself, but for Maddie as well," Rosalie says softly from Maddie's side. "I could feel a maternal side to her, although she is younger than Maddie, and a desperate want for children and family. She and I will be eye to eye on that, and I feel I will have a new friend. Yes," she finishes.

"It will be wonderful to have two more sisters," Alice says in a giddy voice, bouncing across the room and throwing her arms around me. "And, like Bella, Sophie has an eye for great literature, and, like me, has opinions on fashion, which will be fun to compare notes on. I say, all in all, this will make a wonderful arrangement. Yes," she says.

"It won't be a hardship to have another child in this family," says Esme, from where she is standing by Carlisle. "Yes."

"She's gifted, to be sure," Carlisle says. "But this is not the factor in which we chose her. We chose her because she had a strong will to survive, and we chose to help. Now, we will add her to the family, in the great hope that she will protect us as we protect her. Yes."

I smile at all of them. "Will…will Renesmee get a vote?"

Bella smiles at me. "As soon as we've gotten through with hunting, you will meet her, and Jacob."

"Wait until you smell the dog himself," Emmett chuckles. "It'll make you puke up all the blood from the hunt."

I make a face at him. "You and I are going to arm wrestle after the hunt, as soon as I've met Renesmee," I promise.


End file.
